


Time and Ocean Breaks

by Gefionne, kitseybarbours



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Evacuation of Dunkirk, Gef and kitsey write about the War, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, period-typical violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 02:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11568108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gefionne/pseuds/Gefionne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitseybarbours/pseuds/kitseybarbours
Summary: Sailing on a calm English Channel in May 1940, Ben Solo pulls a barely-conscious soldier out of the wreckage of a bombed-out boat off the coast of Dunkirk, France. Lieutenant Armitage Hux is wounded and trying desperately to get home to England.





	1. Hux

_ time and ocean breaks  
_ _ bring them back together again _

\- Lonnie Hicks, “Ocean Breakers”

## Hux

It’s a mix of water and gritty, cold sand that lands on his back as he dives for what little cover his helmet offers him. The ground just fifty feet away explodes in a hail of earth, spattering his already filthy uniform. He can’t remember anymore the last time he was out of it.

The days on this beach have blurred together into a washed-out facsimile of the life he’s known since the war began. The battles he’s fought in the past months were bloody and bright, but now everything is just grey: the sand, the sea, the faces of the soldiers stranded here in Dunkirk, caught between the Channel and thousands of German troops and tanks in France behind them. The higher-ups say they are to be evacuated, that boats will come from England to take them home, but they’ve been waiting for days, and only today have the promised vessels appeared.

They spent the morning lining men up at the shore, the waves lapping at their already damp boots. Lieutenant Armitage Hux assembled his men, as ordered, near the back of one line by the entrance to a creaking, abandoned Ferris wheel. It stood over the beach like a last spindly bastion of the pleasure that was once had here. Now it and all the other amusement rides are battered from weeks of abuse by bored soldiers taking out their frustrations and homesickness on anything they could find.

The first boats were boarded without incident, and Hux and his men made it halfway down to the sand before the first of the aeroplanes came into sight: German fighters with machine guns that peppered the ground and cut the gathered men down like wheat in a field, but redder. The orderly lines were perfect fodder for their bombs. Hux didn’t know how many had died today, but he knew it was more than had escaped.

The onslaught pauses for a few minutes at a time, allowing a scant number of boats to pick up men and turn tail for England, but even they aren’t wholly out of danger. The fighters come for them, too, and rain bullets down on those standing on their decks. Hux watched one boat, marked with the Red Cross, sink slowly into the choppy water after a bomb hit it amidships. Unless the souls aboard could swim back to shore or were fortunate enough to be picked up by another boat, they were as lost as those who fell on the beach.

Hux looks up now, his ears ringing from the nearby bomb, and searches for the familiar faces of his men. He’s responsible for them, some younger than him, and he’s only twenty-three. He thought he knew so much when he was commissioned, but nothing really prepared a man for combat; nothing prepared him for the chaos that now reigns along the beach.

The lines are gone, the soldiers scattered and seeking any safe haven they can find. There is none, Hux knows. It’s luck that will keep him and his men alive, and even then, there is no guarantee that they will get aboard one of the few remaining boats, those whose captains are brave enough to remain.

His hands leave impressions in the wet sand as he pushes himself up to stand again. There is a lull in the attack, but the sounds of buzzing aeroplanes still remain. He squints into the distance and feels a small flame of hope: there are British fighters out among the Germans, Hurricanes and Spitfires drawing the Messerschmitts away from the beach to give the infantry a chance. As he watches, one bursts into flames, spiralling down toward the water. Once, Hux would have said a prayer, but he stopped praying a long time ago.

“Sir!” cries a man to Hux’s left, slipping as he tries to run through the sand. Hux recognizes him as one of his own, and reaches out to steady him. He’s gasping for breath and half-soaked. “There’s a boat coming, sir. We’ve got a chance at it if we go now.”

“Where are the others?” Hux calls, louder than is necessary; his hearing is still impaired. He glances around to see several other familiar faces turning to him. Their ashen cheeks are sandy, and their eyes are wide, fearful. Hux tries to school his expression, keep his calm, but his heart is racing, and he’s afraid. Swallowing, he struggles to wet his tongue. “Get as many together as you can. I’ll get the rest. Where is the boat?”

The man points about a hundred yards west to where a small vessel is approaching the shore. None of the boats are big enough to take more than thirty men; anything bigger can’t get close enough for them to wade out to meet it.

“Go,” Hux says to the man. “I’ll come as soon as I can.”

The man darts off, stumbling in his exhaustion and fear, leaving Hux standing in the middle of the beach while others mill around him, some looking past him, others to him for guidance. He gathers what few he can and shoves them toward the incoming boat, yelling orders that he hopes are heard.

When he’s gathered ten or fifteen men and sent them on their way, he trails after them at a crooked run in the soft sand. His boots are sodden, feet damp and wrinkled inside his socks. And there won’t be any respite, he thinks, as he strides into the frothy surf up to his ankles, his knees, his hips, and then his chest. The water is bitter cold, chilling him immediately and almost dragging him down by the weight of his woolen uniform. A few of the other men are wearing lifebelts, but he didn’t have the good fortune of being issued one. At least he was taught to swim young, and could manage even in the unpredictable swells of the Channel.

The humming sounds and _rat-a-tat-tat_ of aeroplane machine guns has trailed off now, as he wades through the water, his feet barely touching the ground. Ahead of him is the boat: smaller than he originally thought, and bobbing lightly on swells as a middle-aged man in civilian clothing throws a ladder over the side to allow Hux’s men to climb aboard. They heave themselves up onto it, dripping, and once they get over the gunwale, congregate near the stern, where there is space for them.

Hux is the last to swim up to the ladder. He almost doesn’t make it, but the man leans over and says, “Come on, lad. We’ve got a place just for you.” Hux latches onto the ladder, the wet rope abrading his hands, and starts up. He has to fight to keep his footing on the slippery wooden deck when he gets aboard, but he manages it, saving him some face in front of his men.

There is no mistaking now that this is a civilian vessel. The pilot is the only one aboard and the name on the side of the boat reads _Maria Andrea_. There’s clearly a cabin below that has living quarters.

“We have to go,” Hux says to the pilot. “The Jerries will be back; we can’t wait.”

The man, blond-haired and wearing a weather-beaten jumper, replies, “I know, lad. We’re turning round as quick as we can. You just stand back, and I’ll get you home.”

Hux doesn’t immediately do as he is told. His men are huddled together against the wind, but he holds his ground by the pilot. “What are you doing here?” he asks bluntly, with a slight edge of desperation to his voice. “This is a military operation.”

The pilot eyes him as he cuts across the deck to the wheel and turns it hard to starboard, throttling up the engine. The boat turns into the waves and begins to move away from the beach. “You don’t know, then?” he says, gravelly.

“Know _what?”_ Hux demands. He’s used to his rank carrying weight, and receiving answers as promptly as they can be delivered. He realizes that this man doesn’t know him from any other soldier; to him he’s just another boy in a uniform.

“They’ve put out a call for every seaworthy vessel on the east coast to come to Dunkirk,” the pilot says. “Doesn’t matter if you’re a Sunday sailor or a fisherman, they need everyone to get you lads out of France.”

Hux gapes at him, astonished. “Any boat?” he says. “But don’t they know how few are getting away? There are Germans dropping bombs every quarter hour!”

The pilot shrugs, gaze trained out over the grey-green water. “They won’t take me in the army, lad; too old. But they’ll let me sail over here and keep those who _do_ fight safe, so I’ll take that.”

Hux grabs for the railing to steady himself as the boat pitches forward in a wave. The war effort consumes everyone, and he shouldn’t be surprised at this man’s courage, but he is. “Of course,” he says. “Yes. Are there more coming over?”

“About half the town pushed off when the broadcast came on,” says the pilot over the crash of water. “The _Maria_ here is quicker, but I saw some in their sailboats, too.”

Hux tries to imagine watching from the beach as sails appear on the horizon. It seems surreal, but so does everything else about this war. He hasn’t been out of a dream since he was commissioned.

The little ship labours to get into the Channel proper, and Hux feels as though he should be breathing easier, but he can’t. He considers going to check on his men, yet he stays where he is near the pilot, watching the wisps of blond hair on the back of a man’s head flutter with each gust of wind. His own hair is heavy with dried salt and the oil of weeks without a bath. His fellow students at Cambridge once would have called him vain, but he hasn’t cared about his appearance in months. It’s his life that matters, not the sweep of his part or the shine of his shoes. He realizes that he lost his helmet before he left the beach; he has no recollection of taking it off, and feels naked without it. He’s just running a clammy hand over his head when he hears the buzzing of aeroplane engines again.

“Christ,” he says, looking up. There are eight German fighters coming over from France, but their target isn’t the beach this time; they’re soaring out over the water, seeking the fleeing vessels full of scared English soldiers with nowhere to go, save for into the sea.

“Might get a little rough here, lads,” says the pilot, knuckles white on the wheel, “but, God willing, we’ll see Dover.” He sets his gaze hard ahead, determined, but Hux keeps his trained on the sky.

The Germans are closing in and beginning to open fire. Fountains of water shoot up where their bullets hit the sea, like a pathway through a Baroque garden, but it leads only to one of the other boats and ends with cries and the snapping of wood. Several men splash limply into the water. The boat sails on, leaving them behind.

The first bomb is dropped about one hundred yards from Hux’s boat, making all of the men in it duck. The pilot and Hux stay upright, but barely. A wave rolls over the gunwales and across the deck in the aftermath, but Hux barely notices; he’s staring, wide-eyed, at the Messerschmitt heading straight for them. He expects the guns first, but they don’t come. Instead there’s a whistling sound, and then a heavy _thunk_.

The power of the explosion knocks the wind out of him, and hitting the water is like landing on hard pavement, at least before he starts to sink. There’s pain concentrated at his side, but his primary concern is getting a breath before he inhales seawater. He breaks the surface with a gasp, fighting to stay afloat. The area around him is a mess: chunks of wood and motionless bodies; the _Maria Andrea_ is in pieces.

Fear pierces him, coursing through his body along with the rising adrenalin that will keep him alive. He reaches for a piece of debris, latching onto it despite the sharp edges that cut into his hands. He kicks his legs, but he has nowhere to go. The beach is too far away to swim to and England is miles away across abusive waves and currents.

_I’m going to die here._

He hugs the piece of wood to his chest and lets it take his weight. It would have been easier just to be killed by the bomb. Now he’ll have to float until he tires and allows himself to drift into the water. The pain in his side is growing steadily, the water turning red around him as his life ebbs away. Slowly closing his eyes, he resigns himself. If he sleeps, it will be quiet, and that’s all he wants: a quiet expiration as he floats toward home.


	2. Ben

## Ben

“It’s calm today.”

Ben Solo puts down his binoculars and retakes his seat in the bow of his father’s small, battered boat, the _Falcon._ They set out from Ramsgate more than two hours ago and are sailing south, through the Straits of Dover. It is a brisk late-May afternoon, nineteen-forty.

Han Solo, at the helm, shades his eyes with his hand to look at his son, and replies, “Hope the Jerries let it stay that way.”

“Mm.” Ben watches as a chunk of debris floats by them in the water, an oily-black piece of metal: part of a ship or a submarine. The sea around them is still placid, but every moment they get closer to France, and to the war.

Han’s hopes are soon dashed. Barely twenty minutes after his comment, as the French coast comes distantly into sight, they begin to hear the explosions—and they’re close, too close. They see the flashes of light, hear the muffled, booming reports of the guns; and Han swears.

“We’ll turn around,” he says. “Once we pass this rock. I have a bad feeling.”

Ben nods. He picks up his binoculars again. They pass the outcropping Han spoke of, and suddenly they appear as if dropped there by an unseen hand: the boats. The men.

Little ships dot the water, merchant crafts and larger navy vessels—and on the beach, a forest of men. Some are being loaded onto the boats, but there are still hundreds of them, thousands, in rows on the sand. Ben’s mouth drops open, the binoculars glued to his eyes. “Dad,” he starts to say—and at nearly the same moment, there is a screaming from above, and then an aeroplane opens fire on the ships and the beach.

The next moments are lost in a vicious hail of bullets. Ben watches in numb horror as the plane is joined by another, raining destruction on the men who wait, helpless, on the beach, and on the decks of the ships that must have come to rescue them. Ben and Han, far away in their minuscule craft, remain untouched. Amid the noise, Ben turns to his father, wide-eyed.

If a call for civilian aid has been put out, Ben and Han haven’t heard it: they’ve been off the wireless for hours. But Han nods, slowly. They have to do something.

Finally the barrage ends; the planes soar away, their damning mission done. Ben sees men fallen on the beach, lying on their sides like so many toppled chess pieces. Those who are still standing have thrown themselves to their bellies, so the beach that had been a forest is now a flat, dark plain, stained here and there with blood: clusters of poppies.

Wordlessly, Han steers them closer to the other ships, many of them damaged. Some list horribly as they take on water, and Ben can see men flinging themselves from the sides, into the bottomless and hungry sea from which these boats were supposed to save them. He would have thought to hear screaming, but instead, a dreadful silence hangs in the air.

He turns away, looks to the other side. But he cannot keep his eyes from the water, and after a moment:

“Look,” Ben says, frowning. He points, squinting, waving away the whitish smoke that has drifted toward them. His eyes sting. “Over there.”

A flash of red, in the water close to them. Hardly visible, but just: a man, flame-haired. “I think—I think he’s still alive.”

Han sees where Ben is pointing. He gives a sharp turn of the wheel and steers them in that direction. There is the wreckage of a small ship in the water near the man, but no other apparent survivors. Ben shudders to imagine: they have either been blown up or drowned; he does not know which is worse.

_But not this one. He lives._

Ben keeps his eyes fixed on the man’s slowly bobbing form, anxious, as if willing him to stay afloat with the force of his gaze. As they get closer, weaving through the debris, it becomes clearer that he is, indeed, still breathing, still strong enough to keep his head above the water, to cling to a piece of wood from the ship—but he won’t be for much longer. The water around him is red, tendrils drifting from what must be a wound in his left side.

The man is struggling, that much is plain. In the eerie silence, the aftermath, his gasping breaths can be heard, interspersed ominously with wet gurgles that evince how much of the sea has made its way into his lungs. Ben’s heart is pounding faster as they draw closer and closer: so close, but will they be in time to save him? He is only one man, but Ben has become determined. Han must sense his desperation. They go faster.

They are within reach of the drowning man. He is fading: his grip on the plank grows weaker, his struggling movements more listless. The water, redder. Ben can sense the strength leaching from him with his blood, the will to live slipping away. _Hold on,_ he wants to shout to him. _We’re coming._

“Get ready,” Han says tersely. “We’ll have to haul him aboard. Don’t let the boat tip, or we’ll all be done for.”

“I know.”

The man has finally given up his fight. His eyes are closed, his red head tips back, he is slowly sinking by the time they reach him. His eyes flutter open in shock when Han grasps his shoulders and pulls him up, mightily: his mouth opens to cry out but only fills with cold sea-water, instead. He chokes and coughs as Han struggles to heave him over the side.

“Careful,” Ben frets, adjusting his stance to balance the craft, thrown aslant by the violence of Han’s movements and the extra weight brought suddenly aboard. “He’s hurt.”

“Help me,” Han grunts, “his clothes are wet, I can’t take him—”

Ben steps forward; the deck rocks; together they succeed in dragging the wounded soldier aboard. With matching huffs and grunts, they deposit him on his back. His eyes are closed, his face is pale, his lips are blue, and the left side of his uniform is red, too red, the fabric soaked and in tatters. For a moment all is silent—Ben fears they are too late, they have failed after all.

But then the red-haired soldier coughs. He sputters and jerks, and expels a mouthful of water, crying out hoarsely as the salt-water burns his throat. Han makes to kneel—“Easy, man, you’re all right”—but then the soldier stills again, and his head lolls back on his neck. He is unconscious. But he is breathing, his lungs clear at last.

“He’s alive,” Ben says, quietly. He feels relief.

“We should search,” his father says. “He can’t have been the only one on that ship. There might be more survivors.” He is already craning his neck, looking around for signs of life.

But Ben looks up from the soldier’s prone form. “No,” he says at once, too forceful. Han frowns. “No,” Ben repeats. “He needs care. Right now. We need to…we could save him.”

His chances will be better the sooner they get him back on dry land, get him warm and stanch his wound. Yes, they might find others; but the boat is only so big, and the longer they stay out, the more they—and their passenger—are at risk.

The same thoughts seem to cross Han’s mind. After a moment, he nods; and then stands up, and returns to the helm. “Put pressure on the wound,” he directs his son. “Let’s take him home.”

 

* * *

 

Upon closer inspection it is revealed that the half-drowned soldier is a lieutenant, and young. Ben kneels at his side, laces his hands together, and leans all his weight on the bleeding wound in his side: it is not as bad as it had looked in the water, where the blood had dispersed and swirled; but he has still lost much of it. His face is deathly-pale.

The trip back seems to take years. They leave the devastation at the beach behind; another formation of planes streaks over them, heading out to cause more. The soldier does not wake, and Ben keeps a fearful watch to see that his chest still rises and falls. Han squints grimly at the horizon; it begins to rain. The soldier, still unconscious, shivers in his sleep, and Ben shucks off his sweater and drapes it over him. He is utterly determined to keep this man, this stranger, alive.

Finally they dock, and the movement seems to jar the wounded man: he moans, so softly Ben is not sure he heard it at all. His instinctive urge is to reach out, lay a hand on him until he soothes. He resists it.

“Can you take him?” Han asks. “Alone? I’m going to go back out. It doesn’t feel right not to.”

Ben nods. The wounded man is slight; Ben has grown strong, sailing with his father since they moved here. “If you can help me get him out,” he says, “then I’ll carry him home.”

Together they manoeuvre the wounded man from the boat—he moans, again, louder now, and Ben tries to ignore the pain in his voice and focus on the fact that he is breathing at all. Steady on land, Ben plants his feet and, with his father’s help, shifts the young soldier’s body so that he is held in Ben’s arms, a limp bridal-carry.

“You’ve got him?”

Ben nods.

“Try and keep him breathing until I get back.” A wry smile, and then Han is gone, and Ben is left with the soldier. Strange: his clothes are waterlogged, and yet his weight is birdlike in Ben’s arms.

 

* * *

 

The cottage is dark when Ben brings him inside. He cannot fumble for a lamp until he sets him down, and so hurries through the nearest open door—his own bedroom. Carefully, gently, he lays the soldier down on his bed. He gives a minute sigh, his head falling soft onto the pillow, eyes still closed. He is, Ben realises, shivering.

Ben looks around. He kneels at the wardrobe, opens the bottom drawer and takes out all the spare wool blankets, stowed away for the summer. Arms full, he returns to the bed, and tucks the soldier in with them; Ben’s sweater is wet now, too, pinned between the wounded man and the mattress.

 _It doesn’t matter._ He’ll retrieve it later. What _does_ matter is the wound. Ben’s left sleeve is wet with the soldier’s blood.

He goes into the kitchen and grabs every towel he can find, and then hurries to shove them under the soldier’s wounded side before doing anything else: his mother’s voice in his head, telling him to mind the quilt, his grandmother made it. Luckily, he finds that the bleeding has relented, and has not yet stained the bedding—but then he wonders if this is an ill omen, the sign of a heart slowing. Ben bends to put his ear to the soldier’s mouth, nervous, and finds with relief that he is still breathing.

 _What now?_ He will need better access to the wound, and something to clean it with. Scissors, boiled. Antiseptic. Bandages. Ben goes back to the kitchen and puts water on to boil, his movements quick and decisive. Adrenalin gives him focus. He finds a pair of metal scissors and drops them into the pot, and then goes into the bathroom to fetch iodine and gauze while he waits for them to boil. He catches sight of himself in the mirror and sees his eyes sharp and determined. _I will keep him alive._

The scissors are ready. He draws them out of the pot with a pair of tongs, dries them briefly, and then on second thought hauls the pot into the bedroom too, not knowing if it might come in use. He fetches some spare clean rags and then returns to the bedroom with the rest of his improvised medical kit. The storm has begun to move in, and thunder rolls: or Ben hopes it is thunder, and not guns.

He sets down his supplies on the bedside table and stops, staring down at the man lying prone and helpless there. Ben is struck with a brief feeling of vertigo— _his life is in my hands, I don’t know what to do—_ but he shakes his head and snaps out of it. _Focus. The wound. Cut away the uniform._

He feels sorry to unwrap him again, after he has tucked him in warmly. When he takes the blankets off, the soldier’s brow half-furrows in unconscious protest. Ben drags a chair over from the corner and sits down, close enough to work. Taking a deep breath, he reaches out, and begins to cut the sopping, bloodied uniform away from the wound. The soldier flinches, Ben must have tugged at something—he stills at once—but he does not move or cry out. Ben carries on, and finds that his hands are not shaking.

He cuts a neat circle out, thinking to start there—but he cannot see all of the wound. Ben steadies himself, smelling blood, and then decides to unbutton the uniform jacket and remove it, rather than cutting the rest to pieces. He reaches for the buttons, his heart thumping queerly in his throat.

The jacket parts beneath his nervous hands. The soldier wears a vest, dirty with age, thin with over-washing, and wrecked at the side where Ben’s scissors had gone through it; with less hesitation, he cuts it fully open and peels it from the soldier’s chest. What skin is revealed, unbloodied, is pale, goose-pimpled with cold; and the gently heaving ribs are so close to the skin Ben could count them. His eyes fix on the curve of the man’s flat stomach as it bows to meet his hip—bone jutting, sharp angles—and then he looks away, feeling heat come to his cheek.

_Focus. The wound._

Shrapnel, Ben sees now. Little, sinister, sharp-edged slivers, producing all this blood. They are close to the surface, though—not embedded—they should come out easily enough. Then he will be able to bandage the wound without fear of its becoming gangrenous, the dirty metal rotting it from inside out. His next task, then. He has no finer instrument; his fingers will have to do.

Ben closes his eyes, feeling queasy at the thought of reaching inside the wound, inside this stranger’s flesh; but he knows it will save his life. He knows what he must do. He reaches for the iodine and daubs some on a wad of gauze, wincing as it touches a dry spot on his hand. He begins, carefully, to clean the skin around the shrapnel—and the unconscious soldier gives a small cry.

Ben pulls back immediately. The sickly orange-coloured antiseptic must have stung him. “I’m sorry,” Ben breathes, not knowing whether the soldier can hear him or not. The man’s high brow furrows deeper, his full mouth twists, displeased; but still, his eyes stay closed. After a tentative moment in which he makes no other sound, Ben tries again.

He succeeds in wiping much of the blood from the wound, some of it drying already. To his relief he finds that the point of entry is clean, and fairly shallow, as he’d thought; the shrapnel lies close to the skin, most of it poking out. He steels himself to remove the smaller pieces, dousing his fingers in iodine once again, not caring whether it stains his skin. And then he takes the largest piece of metal between his thumb and index, and pulls.

The shrapnel is slippery with blood and iodine and comes out easily, with far less struggle even than Ben had hoped. But the sensation must have been jarring enough to jolt the soldier from his half-sleeping state: he jerks, and moans again, louder this time.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says at once. “I’m so sorry to hurt you. But—you’re safe now,” he continues, remembering his mother bending over the thousand scraped knees of his childhood, back at home in the States; so many years ago, now. Her words of reassurance had helped almost as much as a bandage. “You’re safe here.”

Not willing to cause the soldier any more pain, he now sets aside the iodine-soaked gauze and dips a rag in the boiled water instead, hoping the warm touch will soothe him. He keeps talking, soft and hesitant, as he cleans the soldier’s skin. “We’ve brought you home. It’s warm here, and your wound is clean. I’m going to take care of you.”

The soldier’s lips part, and he seems to mumble a response: Ben cannot make it out. He bends closer over him, and asks, softly, “Can you hear me?” Another noncommittal, half-formed sound. Ben tries again. “Are you awake?”

And now finally the officer’s eyes open blearily, and reveal themselves to be a clear, pale shade of sea-green; Ben is struck by the long, golden-blond eyelashes, damp still with salt-water.

“I’m awake,” the wounded man murmurs, shifting in bed. He looks up, and his eyes focus, his gaze fixing on Ben. His dry lips part. “So this is what a miracle looks like,” he says.

And then his eyes droop shut again and he slips back into unconsciousness, leaving Ben frozen at his side, the rag still clutched in one hand.


End file.
